Rebels shoot six dead in raid on Indian village

Suspected separatist rebels have stormed a village in India's northeast and shot dead six people, police said.

Suspected separatist rebels have stormed a village in India's northeast and shot dead six people, police said.

The latest attack came as police began a hunt for two guerrillas who intelligence agencies said had entered Guwahati, the main city in the region, to plant bombs.

A series of attacks in Assam state and neighbouring Nagaland killed 56 people at the weekend. The remote, mountainous region, home to a patchwork of ethnic minority hill people, is ringed by China, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Burma.

The National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), fighting for a separate homeland for Bodo people, has been blamed for the violence in Assam since Saturday. The anniversary of the beginning of the group's insurgency in 1985 was on Sunday.

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In neighbouring Nagaland state, 26 people were killed in three bombings on Saturday, the deadliest day since a ceasefire with the main Naga separatist group was agreed seven years ago.

No group claimed responsibility for the attacks in Nagaland, which borders Burma. Police said the Nagaland violence was apparently not related to the attacks in the oil- and tea-producing state of Assam.

Dozens of rebel groups have been fighting mostly low-intensity insurgencies in the northeast for years. Some groups want greater autonomy, or statehood, within India and some want to break away.